Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Friday May 29, 1998 @04:09AM
from the sun shiny day dept.

Barry de la Rosa wrote
in to sun to ask for more info on their recent announcement
that they are joining Linux International. Hit the link below
to read their PR Statement...

First and foremost, Sun sees joining LI as an opportunity to foster
further innovation in the UNIX space, especially in University and
research facilities, which typically have more freedom to experiment
and innovate than commercial markets. We encourage such innovations
and look forward to incorporating some of these innovations into future
versions of Solaris. In addition, we support all efforts to increase
the exposure to UNIX in all areas, especially the educational and research
environments.

Q. What will your principal activity be within LI?

A. David's role on the LI board will be to ensure that the Linux
UltraSPARC ports are up-to-date; Sun's role is to ensure that
the members of LI can take advantage of the very latest features
of UltraSPARC processors. Chief among these are the VIS instruction
extensions for graphics, encryption, compression and I/O performance.
We also want to ensure that Linux can take full advantage of all
of the performance boosting capabilities of the Sun UPA (Ultra Port
Architecture) cross-bar switch.

Finally, we want to ensure that all of the latest device drivers
are up to date and we want to foster compatibility between Solaris
and Linux device drivers at the DDI/DKI interface level (Device
Driver Interface and Driver Kernel Interface).

Q. Would Sun ever consider releasing software under an Open Source
licence, a la Netscape?

A. We believe that licensing is critical to maintaining the integrity
of software; for example, while Java is free, Sun licenses it to
ensure the standard is maintained and the software is not corrupted.

Q. Would you consider (as suggested on /.) releasing a distibution
of Linux on your machines as a cheap, low end solution?

A. Sun has always, and will continue, to offer a license for Solaris
on all our systems. There are currently no plans to bundle Linux
on any systems.

Q. Do you see a coalition forming between the Open Source community
and the anti-MS brigade - seeing as both yourselves and Netscape
can now count yourselves as members of both - and could this, in
conjunction with the DOJ's action, end (or seriously stifle) MS's
domination of the OS market?

A. Unfortunately, we cannot comment on any matters relating to the
DOJ's actions. However, we do not see any direct correlation
between these two.